So, last week, as I'm laying on the air mattress in my new little apartment in San Antonio TX, I get a little buzz in my pocket for a little notification that Love has been Greenlit. After 502 days of spreading the word and begging people to click that yes button, it's finally happened, Love has been greenlit.

Right now I'm still waiting on my desktop to get to me from the moving truck on its way from Albany NY, but I'll sequester my desire to stay productive by letting loose a few of my neat plans for Love on Steam.

Achievements

This is probably the least exciting or the most exciting announcement depending on what kind of player you are. Thanks to the Steam integration for Game Maker Studio, I will be able to program in some achievements for Love. I'll be working with my achievement-seeking friend Levi to come up with fun, creative, and worthwhile achievements for the game. No Avatar: The Burning Earth on XBox 360 from 2007 style achievements in this one.

Leaderboards

At the end of Love, you get a grade and a score, based on how many spawns you placed, how many deaths you had, how quick you beat each level, etc. Did you know that Steam has global leaderboards? Well guess what, Love is going to take advantage of that. Show people that you're the best. Speaking of competition...

Speedrun Mode

I've been wanting to add this since I spent 7 days watching the amazing people at Awesome Games Done Quick raised over a million dollars for charity. This mode will take out most of if not all of the random parts of the game and allow it to be a very speedrunner friendly game. It'll even track your time to within a 30th of a second, and post your final time on a separate leaderboard. I'm a fan of speedrunning, though I'm not particularly good at it myself. At least I can contribute to the community by giving something to run.

Platform Release Schedule

I anticipate having Love available on Steam for Windows based PCs within the first two weeks of February, barring any unforeseeable complications. The priority will then be to make sure Macs are supported. Then, the one that will most likely be difficult for me, Linux. Linux is obviously important to me, because I very much want to support the SteamOS movement.

The Future

Once these things are squared away, I'll be returning to the core game and adding even more. I've got level concepts I'm excited to toy with, and I intend to release these levels as free updates. Love will launch at $1.99 (though it will eventually retail for $2.99), and everyone who bought the game through other services will receive a Steam Key as soon as I am able to give those out. I'll also add support for the Steam Controller as soon as I get my hands on one.

I hope that you'll pick up Love when it launches in February, and that you'll show the fine folks at Valve that they made a good choice when they greenlit Love.